A party in the Balkans is unimaginable without two things: brass instruments and alcohol. Goran Bregovic may appear to have much the same needs. Despite the astonishing breadth of music that he composes (for performance and film) a brass band is never far away, and nor, if his unforgettable 2008…
Category: Features
When music is banned in the north of your country, and those who persist in making it are threatened with having their fingers amputated, the stakes of being a musician have just been raised. But, as Rokia Traore knows, the stakes were always high in Mali, the epicentre of African…
Were Robert Wyatt your only source of Robert Wyatt information you’d conclude he was the most useless scrub ever to presume to make records. Repeatedly during our hour-long telephone chat he refers to himself as “rubbish”, insists how little he knows about music, or deflects questions by discussing someone else.…